Sunflower's Use As Food Crop Traced To Mexico

New evidence confirms the sunflower was domesticated in Mexico more than 4,600 years ago, contrary to the widely held belief that it was converted into a food crop in the Mississippi Valley.

"Given all the available data, the best explanation is that the sunflower was domesticated twice," said University of Cincinnati archaeologist David L. Lentz.

The sunflower has been an important food crop in the Americas, both for its high fat content and its oil. It also played a role in many religious rites.

Lentz reported seven years ago that he and his colleagues found a 4,600-year-old sunflower seed and achene - the sunflower fruit containing the seeds - at San Andres in Tabasco.

But critics like Bruce Smith of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History say the remains were not really sunflower. Smith argued genetic analysis indicates that sunflowers from Mexico and the U.S. have the same origin. Many experts believe Spanish conquistadors brought domesticated sunflowers to Mexico from the north.

A new find from a site called Cueva del Gallo in the state of Morelos confirms the earlier find, Lentz and his colleagues reported last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They discovered three well-preserved achenes that they say are indisputably sunflowers and that date from around 300 BC, 1,800 years before the Spaniards' arrival.